Europe

A Banca Monte Dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) €1bn seven year issued on Tuesday was the most oversubscribed covered bond of its size issued this year and, with 300 investor orders, attracted the most granular order book of the year by a wide margin.

The IPO of Verallia, the French maker of bottles and jars, is covered at its full size. Sources close to the deal are pleased with the calibre of investors in the book.

Caisse de Refinancement de l'Habitat (CRH) returned to the covered bond market after a six year absence with a transaction that resonated well with the market, according to the bank’s chief executive, Marc Nocart.

Hannover Re has added to a string of recent new issuance from European insurers, opting for an unusual maturity structure for its tier two this week.

Globalworth Real Estate Investments, the London-listed real estate investment trust focused on commercial properties in Romania and Poland, is preparing to raise up to €276.45m of fresh equity to finance its bulging pipeline of acquisitions.

Initial price guidance has been set for two corporate bonds from issuers in the CEE region — EP infrastructure and Metinvest. Both deals expected to be printed later on Tuesday.

AIB Group is set to sell a new additional tier one (AT1) with a six month call period ahead of the first payment reset date. This feature was pioneered by Nationwide Building Society, and looks as though it could become the norm in the AT1 market.

Sovcombank printed a tier two bond on Monday at the wide end of guidance and the lowest end of the expected size range, which an investor said was a sign that the deal was “struggling” over the line. But a lead manager on the note pointed to healthy trading on Tuesday and its debut status and said that the issuer had simply taken sensible decisions after an in-depth price discovery process.

An investigation initiated by Credit Suisse has found no indication that chief executive Tidjane Thiam approved the observation of its former employee Iqbal Khan. Chief operating officer Pierre-Olivier Bouée has resigned after he declared that he alone requested the surveillance.

Fitch Ratings has downgraded Metro Bank a month after giving the UK lender its first rating. It expressed concern about Metro’s recent failure to raise debt for looming regulatory requirements, but the bank is insisting that it still has plenty of options on the table — including looking at solutions in the private market.

Sopra Steria, a French consulting and computer services business, has raised €250m of Euro Private Placements (Euro PP).

Trans-Oil, the Moldovan agro-industrial firm, has signed a $150m loan facility with nine lenders, including three development banks.